Knititude

He took my needles away!

Ha tolto i miei ferri!

For the first time ever, I lost a pair of knitting needles while traveling-- a security guard in Milan's Malpensa airport decided that my 20" long US size 4 Addi circulars looked dangerous, and confiscated them.  Apparently wood doesn't show up on their xray machines very well, because he ignored my KnitPicks interchangeable circulars with the lovely wood tips.

Per la prima volta ho perso un paio di ferri mentre stavo viaggiando-- un guardiano di sicurezza ha deciso che i miei 50 cm 3.5 mm Addi ferri circulari apparissero pericolosi, e li ha confiscati.  Evidentemente il legno non si rivela bene nelle macchine radiografiche, perche' non si e' interessato ai miei circulari KnitPicks con i punti di legno.

I would have been more upset-- Addis aren't cheap-- but I had nothing on the needles at the time, so there wasn't the added insult of having to strip any work-in-progress off of them.  Plus, the husband and I had just endured the stupidity of the clerk at the check-in counter, who informed us that our carry-on bags, at 12 and 13 kilos, were too heavy, but if we wanted to go to the little store across the hall, we could buy a couple more bags and split the contents, bringing the weight of each bag under the 8 kilo limit (we were allowed two carry-on bags apiece).  Did it do any good to point out that the total weight would be the same (even slightly increased, because of the two new bags), but the total volume would be much greater, because half-empty framed suitcases take up the same amount of room as full ones?  No, it did not.  And by the time we got to the security line, the zipper on my cheap new bag had already broken. 

Mi sarebbe stata piu arrabbiata-- gli Addi sono cari-- ma allora non ho avuto niente sui ferri, e quindi non ho dovuto rimuovere niente da loro.  Anche abbiamo appena soffrito io e mio marito la stupidita' della impiegata al banco check-in, la quale ci ha detto che i nostri bagagli a mano erano troppo pesanti, pero' potremmo comprare due bagagli in piu, e dividere i contenuti, cosi' il peso di ognuno sarebbe sotto il limite di 8 chili.  Ed anche se abbiamo fatto notare che il peso totale sarebbe uguale, pero' il volume sarebbe molto di piu, perche' i bagagli rigidi hanno lo stesso volume, vuoti o pieni?  Non ha fatto una differenza.  E dal momento che abbiamo raggiunto la coda di sicurezza, la cerniera della mia valigia nuova era gia' rotta.

Brain Coral

 

I was thrilled when Tanis Gray emailed me two months ago, and told me that my Vine and Leaf Beret would be on the cover of the fall Vogue Knitting.  

I was actually asked by Tanis to submit ideas for hat patterns for this issue, and since my favorite part of creating hat patterns is working out the crown decreases so they flow from the stitch pattern, I immediately went to my stitch dictionaries and searched for patterns that I thought would adapt nicely to decreasing rapidly-- usually for the flat part of a beret, the decreases work out to approximately 7 or 8 stitches decreased in every round (or something equivalent, i.e. twice as many stitches decreased every other round).  Once again, one of my Japanese stitch dictionaries provided the inspiration; when I saw the stitch pattern I adapted for the Vine & Leaf Beret, I immediately thought of rapidly decreasing every other rep down to a single stitch, and then following with the other reps.  This is another fun knit, and quick!  I highly recommend it.

(If it was up to me, I probably wouldn't have chosen this yarn color.  Having said that, I do like the finished product-- but given the rosy color, the groovy texture, and the fact that it sits on your head, I DEFINITELY would have named this pattern "Brain Coral".)